Humanists
After Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan, leaves it isolated and self-contained in orbit over the Earth following an alien invasion, the Anti-Grannies, an organization of Japanese citizens who feel oppressed by their lack of control over their lives and believe that Japan's fate belongs to its people, take over and establish a Humanist citizen council. =President Shinji Tanaka And The Healers Restoration Underground= During their exile, the Humanists face their greatest challenge from the Healers Restoration Underground, a group that believes that Tohru Nakadai, the 42nd Rai, allowed Grandmother to leave and helped put them in power. The Colossus of Japan After the Healers Restoration Underground stole a circuit module from Grandmother’s brain stem, Councilor Isao Seko informed President Shinji Tanaka and Commander Kazuyo Nakadai, their enforcer, that their informant network had discovered the whereabouts of the module and determined that it powered a weapon that restoration factions were piecing together in the auxiliary metals recycling center. Upset, as her officers had been unable to find any mention of the module in the records, Kazuyo sarcastically applauded Isao, who told her that the military was not always the best choice for intelligence operations. When Isao conveyed to Shinji the council’s suggestion that they convince Tohru Nakadai to help them eliminate the danger to solidify the impression in the people’s minds that he was their ally, he refused out of worry that he would sabotage the mission. When Shinji expressed concern that he would loose the people’s support, Kazuyo and Isao reminded him that without the strength of the council he would loose his tenuous hold on power. After Shinji concurred with them, he asked Kazuyo to speak with Tohru, as she had the greatest chance of success, and prayed that their success came swiftly for all their sakes. After Tohru and Kazuyo destroyed a colossus that the Healers pieced together from pieces of drones that Grandmother created to escape a technotumor that destroyed her intellect, Isao congratulated Shinji for the successful raid and for getting Tohru to take up their cause, a victory Shinji noted came at the cost of damage that went beyond what they could see. The Neopium Dens After Tohru Nakadai illegally raided a Neopium den, Councilor Isao Seko suggested that they put him on a leash, but President Shinji Tanaka dismissed his sarcasm and said that Tohru needed time to shed his independent ways. When Isao suggested that, were it not for Tohru’s interference, the Neopium, a narcotic that brought pleasure to those who took it, and, with prolonged exposure, swayed them to their cause, could work for them, Kazuyo Nakadai coldly reminded him that the drug was illegal. As Isao mockingly asked Shinji if he would listen to Kazuyo unsurprisingly defend her husband or his own council, Shinji said that he would listen to whoever spoke wisely and then dismissed the councilors. Moments later, while Shinji and Kazuyo stood on a balcony that overlooked the Tokyo enclosure, he confessed to her that sometimes he envied the people their complacency, as sheep always did while the shepherd bearded the weight, and asked her how she was accepting things. After she assured Shinji that she was not a ewe, Kazuyo sorrowfully told him that she knew that the past was history and that the present was what mattered, while what might have been was not important. After a scrambled info–cast report informed them that a primary Neopium production facility had been found, Isao warned Shinji that the information was gained too easily and advised him to send spy vids to asses the situation until they amassed enough troops. After Kazuyo contacted the Rai Globe and learned that Tohru had already left, she donned her armor to go help him, but Shinji ordered her to stay because she was too valuable for the party and told her that, though he knew how difficult it was for her, they would wait. After spy–eye transmissions indicated that fighting had broken out in the Satori commerce spire and that it seemed that Tohru was in trouble, Kazuyo went to help him much to Shinji’s dismay. As Kazuyo flew away, Isao told Shinji that two leashes were required. When Kazuyo arrived, she saw as Icespike, the facility’s gatekeeper, rushed to stab Tohru with two spikes that sprung from his armor and knocked him off balance with a blast. As Kazuyo landed next to Tohru, she reprimanded him, but when she noticed that he was injured, she took pity on him. Suddenly, Icespike shot Kazuyo with a dart spray that disrupted her concentration and knocked her off her feet. When Icespike cornered Kazuyo and was about to deliver a killing blow with his staff, Tohru snuck up from behind him and kicked him across the head and sent him reeling through a glass billboard. As Humanist soldiers rushed him, Icespike stole a vascar and fled. While the people and soldiers gathered around them, Tohru said that they made a good team and Kazuyo told him that they would be a better one if he would follow orders, then she corrected herself and told him that at least he achieved his goal and the Neopium trade was in shambles. When Kazuyo asked Tohru how it felt to be a hero, a citizen asked why they took away Neopium, which did not hurt anyone and was a momentary escape from an ever–changing world that was all some of them had, and he told her that he did not know. That night, in Isao Isao’s office, Isao told the councilors that he was wrong to believe that by making Tohru an ally they could control him, and that his outdated ideals threatened their use of the positions of power that Shinji promised them once his rule was secure. As he gazed grimly at his peers, Isao said that he had a suggestion on how to eliminate Tohru forever. Digital Ambush During a council meeting in the new government palace, Councilor Isao Seko demanded that they decommission Kazuyo Nakadai and seize her alien–forged armor after she disobeyed orders that put their victory in danger to assist Tohru Nakadai, whose loyalty he doubted. To Isao’s dismay, President Shinji Tanaka just reprimanded Kazuyo and curtailed her privileges because she was too important to loose as an ally, and refused to dismiss Tohru’s allegiance. After the meeting adjourned, Shinji told Kazuyo that, as a history scholar, the past told him that it would be a lot easier if Isao were dead, and when she asked him if he was going to have him assassinated, he replied that he just meant that it would be easier. That night in Isao’s private chambers, a councilwoman informed the corrupt councilors that spy sphere data reported that Tohru had entered the Nerveweb, the pathway network that permeated the host body and served as his method of transportation, and that the Healers would soon spring their trap. When a councilor expressed unease with providing the Healers with information, Isao said that it was for the good of the country and that after they solidified power around Shinji, they would become the power behind him. Worried that Kazuyo and Tohru held too much sway over Shinji, who could turn against them if he suspected their treachery, Isao reminded the others that after they helped the Healers they would use Shinji’s influence over the people to crush them so that Japan would at last march to the calls of its own destiny. Genocide During a meeting of the Humanists council in the war room of the new government palace, Councilor Isao Seko informed President Shinji Tanaka that their troops were moving into position outside access hangar T–47 where they followed Lieutenant Wasabe, a Healers double-agent, and that soon victory would be theirs. While Shinji looked out a window, he said that they faced a turning point with the future of their country at stake and reiterated his belief that they should bring all their weapons to bear, including Tohru Nakadai, who he admitted caused problems but also risked much to support them and whose costly loyalty they should not ignore. When Isao reminded him that the people already blamed his administration for hardships that resulted from Tohru’s earlier help and said that if he was included the council would withdraw its support, which could further undermine him, Shinji agreed to keep Tohru out and retired to his chambers. When a council-woman nervously said that there was a danger that Shinji would find out that they helped the Healers and manipulated public sentiment against Tohru, Isao assured her that the reward was worth it, and said that, without Tohru, Kazuyo Nakadai would die in the raid, which would make disposing of him easier. While surrounded by the other councilors, Isao proclaimed that, without his guardians, Shinji would rely on them to solidify his control over Japan, which without Tohru’s opposition they could make their own. When Kazuyo arrived to access hangar T–27 where the Humanists forces had located the Healers, Captain Omura informed her that the exits were covered and their weapons were fully charged, then he contacted the Tiger Squads, their elite force, which were on the surface setting up explosives to breach the room. After the charges went off and opened a hole into the hangar, Kazuyo went after Wasabe while the Squads established a sniper wedge to prevent the Healers from passing through the atmosphere shields as they had. Unexpectedly, Makiko grabbed Kazuyo using a Healer Battlesuit that their scientists devised after they studied stolen alien components and kept her away from him. Though the Battlesuit was not as sophisticated as Kazuyo’s armor, it resisted a Tiger Squads’ weaponry while Makiko blasted him with its lasers. When Tohru entered the hangar, Makiko, in her desperation, ordered Koji Yama, a Healer scientist, to initiate the rocket’s launch and the discharge from the engines instantly killed many Healers. When Makiko tried to burn Kazuyo in the engine fire, Kazuyo shot Tohru in the back to get his attention and when he released a burst of energy into the Battlesuit to help Kazuyo escape, the influx caused Makiko to fire a blast that damaged the take-off ramp and placed the rocket in a trajectory against the outer hull. When Koji said that in their rush they had not installed an emergency shutdown circuit, Tohru damned him and attempted to stop the rocket himself, but the exhaust blast kept him away and, despite his attempt to tear it apart with an energy spear, blasted off and tore through the hull. Almost instantaneously, the vacuum sucked thousands of Japanese citizens into space. While Shinji silently sat in his office, Isao and the other councilors mourned their passing in his chambers. When a councilwoman suggested that they could use the tragedy to their advantage to buy themselves a future, Isao initially reacted violently, but he ultimate agreed with her that they had do what they had to do. Days later, in the new government palace, a bewildered Shinji told Tohru that, even though they knew the rocket had accidentally been deflected, somehow the public blamed him, which, ironically, united them in their desire to see him die. Though Shinji offered to stand beside him, Tohru said that if he did that would only destroy any hope he had of leading the people’s front, and told him that he had a chance to bring peace to their land, just not with Rai at his side. After he reiterated that Grandmother charged him with protecting the people, Tohru noted that the best way to achieve that was to allow them to live together in perfect harmony and offered to exile himself from Japan. The Departed One hour before Tohru Nakadai was due to leave his country forever, he sat in a private transport shuttle that was taking him to the Mitsutomoe short-range transport bay, when, suddenly, a group of disgruntled citizens ambushed him and his escort, Kazuyo Nakadai, with air-to-air missiles. Though Kazuyo ordered the shuttle’s pilot to continue on to the bay while she covered them, Tohru had him take them lower so he could jump. As Kazuyo swooped down into the crowd and swatted them aside, she assumed that they were a pocket of the restoration underground, but a woman in the group denied that they were Healers and said that they just wanted to punish Tohru, who she called a monster. After the police dragged the citizens off Tohru, who chose to let them to beat him up instead of fight them, and took them away, Kazuyo inferred that they had found a hidden cache of rebel weapons and told Tohru that they should leave. When Kazuyo and Tohru arrived in the transport bay, a day care provider from the Happy Cloud facility gave Takashi over to Kazuyo, who held him close to her and commented that he could not understand the situation. When Tohru noted that, ever since their estrangement after Japan’s ascension, when he no longer had both parents, Takashi had become resilient, Kazuyo said that he would now be apart from one of them by thousands of miles and handed him over to Tohru with the promise that she would visit him whenever she could. As Tohru held his son in his arms, he commended Kazuyo for her courage and restraint. As Kazuyo apologized for not having been a worthy parent and for having allowed her break up of the Healer rebellion to take away Takashi’s time, she expressed concern over how long the recovery of Japan would last, President Shinji Takashi said that, however long it was, it would be shorter thanks to Tohru’s great sacrifice. Saddened, Shinji told Tohru that exile was a punishment few would accept, let alone bring upon themselves, but, as he bowed down in respect, Tohru noted that hatred for him had brought their people together, and told Shinji that, when he was gone, he could use that union to make Japan whole. As he bowed back, Shinji told Tohru that someday he would be hailed as the hero that he was. Before Tohru boarded his shuttle, he, Kazuyo, and Takashi shared one, final, embrace. While Shinji and Kazuyo watched as Tohru’s shuttle departed, Shinji told her that he was a noble man, and that nobility was often the first causality of war, and she replied that, at least, his war was over. Behind them, Isao looked over at President Shinji Tanaka and his enforcer, Kazuyo Nakadai, and asked his aide, Nkui, how people could be so stoic and sensible while being so utterly and pitifully wrong. While the police dispersed the crowd that gathered to see Tohru’s departure, Isao boarded his personal shuttle and took it to his private storage repository in the Sapporo sub–level while Nkui returned to the palace. When Isao entered the warehouse, he freighted Koji Yama, who he secretly hid at great risk because he thought that his electronics genius could be useful. In order to pressure Koji into finishing, Isao took great pleasure in sarcastically telling him that, if the public were to learn he was who designed the rocket that slaughtered entire families and had taken refuge there without his knowledge, they would kill him. When Koji wondered whether even if they succeeded Tohru would return seeking revenge on the both of them, Isao assured him that in a very short while, Tohru would be incapable of enacting revenge on anyone. Later, in Kazuyo’s quarters in the T. Mifune military barracks adjacent to the new government palace, Kazuyo stared at a photograph of Tohru taken before Grandmother transformed him into Rai, when, then, Shinji called her on the video phone. Once the computer authenticated Shinji’s voice, Kazuyo opened the video-link and spoke with Shinji, who asked her to go see him in his quarters without her armor because he wanted to talk to her as a woman and not a soldier. Confused, Kazuyo closed the feed and faced her armor. When Kazuyo entered the new government palace garbed in her armor, she attempted to devise a credible excuse for why she brought it with her, but when she was unable to do it, she removed it and left it floating in the office lounge. When Kazuyo reached the President’s chambers, she was confused to see three councilors who told her that Shinji asked to see as well were waiting outside for him. Just then, the door to Shinji’s office opened and Isao invited Kazuyo to go in. Soon as Kazuyo entered the darkened room, three soldiers that were loyal to Isao ambushed her and severed her hand that held her armor’s control ring to prevent her from calling it. Startled, Kazuyo believed that Shinji betrayed her, but then Isao revealed that he had used a holographic manipulation to summon her there and that he had killed Shinji, whose corpse rested on his chair. When the councilors chastised Isao for killing Shinji, he told them that now that the people had united it was the best time to seize power. When the councilors asked him why the people would follow him, Isao told them that they would tell them that Kazuyo assassinated Shinji, and when he executed her the people’s loyalty would be his. Enraged, Kazuyo told Isao that Tohru would kill him, but then Isao revealed that his tech team had made certain modifications in the diplomatic shuttle that ensured that Tohru would never reach Earth. Shortly, Isao’s soldiers tossed Kazuyo inside a cell in the maximum security detention block to wait for her execution the next morning. Enraged, Kazuyo cursed at the guards, when then Makiko Minashi, the leader of the Healers Restoration Underground and her fellow prisoner, called her attention and threatened to kill her. =Emperor Isao Seko and The Fall of Japan= Following the assassination of President Shinji Tanaka, Isao Seko assumes control of Japan and proclaims himself Emperor. Isao's reign proves to be short-lived, however, when the island of Japan falls from orbit and crashes on Earth because of Mothergod's machinations. The Fall of Japan Alone in his darken office in the new government palace with the X–O Commando armor that he stole from Kazuyo Nakadai, Isao Seko gazed at it as it stood beneath a beam of light and asked it if it could sense that he did not trust it. Though he knew that the armor was alive, since it grew through alien technology, Isao ignored how aware it was, and asked if it felt loyalty to Kazuyo and resented how he betrayed its former mistress. As he waved Kazuyo’s severed hand in his, Isao asked the armor if it would obey him when he donned the control ring or kill him due to a hidden failsafe that Kazuyo implanted, then, to save face, he told it that he was not a coward, just very cautions. Standing mere feet from the armor, Isao told it that his technicians would examine its every fiber and synapse, and only when they pronounced it completely benign would he take its power for his own, and only then would President Seko become Emperor Seko. Meanwhile, in the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality, the God-like entity Erica Pierce watched from the Rainbow Tower as Tohru Nakadai, Magnus, and Gilad Anni-Padda entered her domain to stop her from achieving Unity, a convergence of all timelines, and feared that Tohru’s power posed the greater hazard to her plans. In a bid to turn Tohru away, Erica contacted him as a hologram projected through a Bionisaur and offered him a chance to save his world. After she conjured an image of Japan as it appeared in orbit over the Earth, Erica told Tohru that she was projecting an energy matrix wavelength into his timeline that increased gravitational fields, and then she pushed Japan from orbit to prove her intention. As Japan dropped Earthward, the suspension support arms deployed automatically throughout the host body to keep the citizens safe. After Erica gave Tohru a rod that would instantly transport him to Japan and negate the mag–grav field once he arrived, she melted the entrance he used to reach the Lost Land so that, once he left, he could never return. Stuck between Erica’s threat to fill the sky with the blood of millions, and Gilad and Magnus’ rationalization that she wanted him gone because she feared him and their plea that he weigh the millions of lives against the billions that would die if they lost, Tohru shattered the rod, and, in retaliation, Erica destroyed Japan. As Japan experienced an increased gravity surge that completely decayed its orbit and made an impact with Earth imminent, the technicians in the headland’s unified operations control center initiated dragon mode in an effort to break their fall, even though its missing limb prevented them from safely making planet-fall. In what felt like an eternity, Japan fell from the sky and crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing millions of people upon impact. The Walking Dead Following the fall of Japan on the edge of the Indian Ocean, Kazuyo Nakadai dug herself up from the ruins of what once was her jail cell, and, as she wandered around the detention block, she recalled that when Japan slipped from orbit and plummeted towards the Earth they heard the emergency announcement in the detention cells. As Kazuyo wondered how and why it happened, she stepped out from behind a column and was horrified to witness the destruction that surrounded her. Just then, Makiko Minashi came out from behind Kazuyo, and, together, they went to go see what was left of Japan. As they made their way through the streets of Japan, and gazed at the destruction and the injured, Makiko noted that it seemed like Grandmother’s emergency systems deployed automatically, and commented that she doubted that more than twenty or thirty million people had died. Sarcastically, Makiko told Kazuyo that it was too bad her Humanists kept her rebels from reestablishing complete technological control, because if they had then the casualties would have been much lower. When a grieving citizen who lost his mother during the crash told them that they were on Earth, Kazuyo said that that was where Tohru was going before Isao Seko killed him, which prompted Makiko to ask if the Rai was dead. After Kazuyo told Makiko that she forgot she had been behind bars longer than her, she told her that her husband had been exiled to Earth but did not know that Isao, who she called a power–hungry weasel, had rigged his shuttle to veer into infinite space instead. Enraged, Kazuyo said that their son, Takashi Nakadai, was with Tohru, and that she had to know if Isao had survived so she could kill him, but that she needed her living armor and the control ring on her severed hand that Isao kept as a trophy. Preoccupied, Makiko warned Kazuyo that if Isao lived he would protect that armor at all cost, and that it was his best bet to regain power once stability had been re-established. Worried that getting to Isao alone and unarmed could be impossible, Makiko wished Kazuyo good luck and then walked away from her. As Makiko left, Kazuyo mused that she had as much reason to hate Isao after he betrayed her rebellion as she did, but figured that she must hate her even more. Meanwhile, in the still-standing remains of the new government palace, Isao Seko and other councilmembers scoured the ruins of his office looking for Kazuyo’s hand, which still held the control ring of the X–O Commando armor, which power Isao desperately wanted for himself. Moments later, a flier crashed in the palace plaza. As Kazuyo stepped out from inside the flier, a group of tattered palace guards opened fire on her and rushed her. Though Kazuyo initially gave the guards a good fight, they soon got the best of her and pushed her on her knees. As the guards surrounded Kazuyo, she bravely told them to kill her fast because they would not get a second chance, when, unexpectedly, Makiko arrived on the scene with Koji Yama and a squad of Ninjatrons that swiftly defeated the soldiers. After Kazuyo killed a guard with another’s pistol, she told Makiko that she thought that she was alone, but Makiko told her that, after she figured that two one-armed wonders would not have a chance, she let her serve as bait while she made her way to the hidden bunkers where the rebellion hid its Ninjatrons. Certain that now that they were not alone they would triumph, Makiko told Kazuyo that they should go see to it that Isao Seko experienced a great deal of pain. Back inside the palace, a councilor informed Isao that their defenses had fallen, and he had just heard that invaders entered the palace proper, while another one suggested that he had to leave. Though he was upset, Isao agreed to leave, but ordered the councilors to secure the armor in the escape craft, because if he could not have his prize, neither would the invaders. Six minutes later, Kazuyo and the others breached Isao’s office just after he fled in a governmental flier, and though the Ninjatrons tried to shut him down, he avoided their blasts and escaped. When Kazuyo discovered he armor was gone, Koji used an alien pulse-scan the underground possessed and helped her find the control ring amid the ruins. Once Kazuyo found her hand, she summoned the armor. As he made his getaway, Isao contacted Icespike, the enforcer he hired to defend the Neopium, and offered him a proposition that would earn him the fame he craved and make him second in importance only to the new emperor of Japan. Suddenly, the armor flew out of the flier and tore a hole through it. Before he crashed, Isao he told Icespike to find him and protect him, because if he died so would his name. As the commando armor flew into the office and wrapped itself around Kazuyo, she said that she missed it, then, when the armor created a surrogate hand for her, she proclaimed that they were truly whole. Concerned that Kazuyo was as determined that her Humanists should rule as she was that her techno-rebellion should take over, Makiko asked her if, when the final sword was drawn, she would kill Isao, who was their strongest leader and their best hope of holding power once the chaos passed, but Kazuyo said nothing and left. When Kazuyo found Isao in the remnants of the Ojima necropolis standing on the compacted ash–chips of Japan’s dead, he sarcastically asked her if she had come to rescue him and then shot her with a pistol which beam harmlessly bounced off her armor. Enraged, Kazuyo told Isao that he would pay for taking her husband and child, but then Icespike shouted that she would have to collect from him first. When Kazuyo shouted Icespike’s name, he urged her to scream it because it would soon be on the lips of the world as the man who killed their new emperor’s most powerful enemy. When Icespike shot her with a speedspike from his gauntlets, she rose off the ground into the air to avoid it, but, to her surprise, he had made modifications to his armor’s offensive mode and followed her. As Icespike shot her with a barrage, Kazuyo mused that the last time he tried to make a notch in his reputation she had Tohru with her, while now she had nothing but her rage and shot him with an energy blast that caused him to crash. As Kazuyo swooped down, Icespike hit her with a lance while Isao shot an ash compactor that released a plume of pressurized gases that blinded her long enough for Icespike to tackle her. While Icespike sprayed Kazuyo with a barrage of ice darts, her armor jammed his spray nozzles and she told him that people would sing for centuries of his failure as they exploded and burnt his arms. As Kazuyo marched towards Isao, he sarcastically asked her if she felt better and told her that, despite her feelings, she knew that he was a good leader and that he could draw their people together through the trying days ahead, just like she knew that, only through him, could the Humanist movement and its ideals survive. Crestfallen, Kazuyo told Isao that everything he said was true, but then she told him that she had served Japan long enough and it was time to serve justice and blasted his head with a discharge from her armor. After Kazuyo killed Isao, Makiko, Koji, and the Ninjatrons arrived in a shuttle and Makiko told Kazuyo that she was impressed and a little surprised she killed him because he was the best chance for Humanist rule. As Makiko pulled out a weapon that she intended to shoot Kazuyo with, Rentaro Nakadai, the 41st Rai and Kazuyo’s father in law, came rushing towards them and said that their fight was stupid given their situation. When Kazuyo told Rentaro to stay away and said that she had nothing to live for, Rentaro signaled Rokland Tate, the Geomancer, to join them and he walked up to her with Takashi Nakadai, Kazuyo’s son, in his arms. Elated to see Takashi, Kazuyo believed that Isao was wrong when he said that he killed him and Tohru, but, to her dismay, Rokkie told her that Tohru gave his life in a struggle to save existence, and because of him the battle was won and he would he honored forever. Surrounded by the Ninjatrons and with Koji at her side, Makiko told Kazuyo to leave Japan with her family and memories and keep both alive. With Takashi in her arms, Kazuyo said that there had been enough fighting, and told Makiko that, just like Japan would endure, so would they. As Kazuyo walked into the sunset with Takashi and Rentaro, she said that it was time to let the healing begin. Category: Rai Category: Groups